Family Pride

by Family Pride (retail) (epub)

  Sam didn’t know what to do. He had to at least suspect that Lillian no longer wanted to see him, that during the long absence she had found someone else. But he wouldn’t, couldn’t accept that, not unless she told him herself.

  He looked at his watch. He had to go if he weren’t to miss his train. His shoulders drooped as he turned away from the house where he was certain she lived and headed back to Paddington. He had noted the number and the name of the road and thought he would write, but he discarded the idea as soon as it was formed. He had to see her, talk to her. If she told him goodbye, then, and only then, would he accept that she was lost to him. Next week he’d come again and wait until she went out. He would ask her to tell him to his face that she no longer wanted to see him. It would be a hard thing to face if she did, but something in his stubborn makeup made him continue to hope.

  He had always been a patient man. He’d give it another week, and another, until he was assured by her that to pursue her any longer was futile.

  When Sam reached home he made himself a drink and prepared to carry it upstairs. There wouldn’t be much sleep for him as he and Dai Smoky were doing the first baking. Viv was taking the bread out on the horse and cart, something Viv disliked but Sam insisted he took his turn, convinced that meeting people was as necessary to his brother as the sleep that seemed to evade him.

  There were no lights on, not even a gas light turned low and he wondered if Gilly had forgotten he was out. Then he remembered the party and wondered if Gilly herself was still not home. He lit the light and set it low in case she was still out and lit a candle to guide him up the long staircase. At her door he paused, he pushed open the door and looked in. She was sitting propped against the head of the bed, illuminated by a candle, awake and still wearing her yellow party-dress and gold sandals.

  He went in and touched her arm and found it as cold as marble. “Gilly? Gilly, what is it?”

  She moved and looked up, staring uncomprehendingly for a moment as if he were a stranger. “Uncle Sam? Late for work am I? What time is it?”

  “Time you were asleep, young lady. You’re frozen, sitting there in your party frock and not even a shawl around your shoulders. Look, why don’t I run a bath and you have a soak while I find some hot water bottles, eh?” Not allowing her the chance to argue, he reached for her dressing gown that hung behind the door, gave it to her, and went out to run the bath.

  “Bath’s running and I’m going down to fetch the hot water bottles, don’t let it run over, mind.” Putting kettles on the gas-stove he wondered what had happened. That she was hurt and upset was obvious and he was certain Paul must be the cause. What could have happened between then so soon after the boy returned? He knew better than to ask, but when the bottles were in her bed, he made cocoa and put biscuits on a tray and went up to her room hoping that she might be able to talk about it.

  “Feel better, love?” he asked after knocking and entering with the tray. “Come on, drink this, keep me company, it’s lonely at this time of the night and I’m not ready to sleep yet.” She took the cup but seemed unwilling to talk. “I think I might have found Lillian,” he went on.

  “You have?” She smiled at him then. “Granfer always said you were dogged and determined.”

  “You still miss Granfer, don’t you?”

  “I always will. Funny, really, most girls can talk to their mam but I never could, not as easily as I could talk to Granfer and—” her voice wavered a little, “or as easy as I can talk to Auntie Shirley. Now Uncle Viv says I mustn’t speak to them ever again.”

  “Not even Paul?” Sam began to see the problem. “Did Uncle Viv tell you why?”

  “No. But I can guess, and it’s all Uncle Derek’s fault. None of it’s to do with Paul or with his mother.”

  “But you do know?”

  “I’ve guessed that Uncle Derek and that Gerry Daniels stole our customers and took the best of Granfer’s business away.”

  “Uncle Viv must have found out something more. Some evidence we can use.” In spite of the girl’s distress he felt a surge of excitement. “What happened tonight, love?”

  Gilly described how Derek had been attacked and how she had been dragged out of the party.

  “Where’s Viv now? I think I’d better go and see how he is.”

  “In Granfer’s snug for sure. That’s where he spends most of his spare time.”

  “I’ll go and have a word.”

  The snug was empty and there was no sign of Viv anywhere in the house. Sam even went into the stables and looked to see if he was sitting in the stall with Ianto. As a child Viv had often been found there, but Ianto dozed peacefully and alone. Puss jumped down onto his shoulder from a beam and startled him. He’d forgotten its nerve-wracking habit of surprising visitors. He stroked the purring animal for a while, standing in the comforting quiet of the stables, trying to think where Viv would have gone.

  He found him in the bake-house starting the fire for the first baking.

  “I was here when you first came looking,” Viv said. “Sitting over by the window in the dark.”

  “Gilly told me that often happens,” Sam replied. “You start looking for something where you expect to find it, neglect to look properly and waste hours searching in the wrong places.”

  “Clever girl, our Gilly.”

  “What happened tonight, Viv?” Sam asked quietly.

  “Suddenly everything all boiled over. I think Vic is dead. We’d have heard by now for sure if he was alive. And while we were involved in that horrific, that maniacal war, there was Derek Green living comfortable, encouraging that rogue Gerry to marry Fanny and steal our business.”

  “Did you discover something we’d missed?” Sam turned the ledger that had been facing Viv towards him and glanced at it.

  “No, no evidence we can throw at him that will stick. It was this—” He pushed some old newspapers towards his brother and his eyes shone with tears. In the papers kept for wrapping rubbish, Sam saw pictures of victims of the Belsen concentration camp.

  “I don’t understand, Viv?” Sam frowned.

  “I kept searching the faces, over and over again, dreading to find Vic. I know it’s stupid, he wasn’t even in that area, and most of these unfortunate people were there simply because they happened to be Jewish, but the faces haunt me. Those dignified men and women, their noble acceptance of such unbelievably cruel torture and death.” He pushed the pictures away from him and went on. “There are other camps almost as bad as this one and I just feel, every time I look at them, that Vic is among them.”

  “Come on.” Sam pushed the papers away from them both and went on, “It’s time to start work. When Vic comes home he’ll want a business to come back to, now won’t he?”

  “Will he be back?” Viv stared at his brother wanting to hope and needing Sam’s reliable strength.

  “Sure of it I am. Same as I’m sure I’ll find Lillian. She might not feel the same way about me as I do for her, mind, but I’ll find her. Now, will you do the knocking up and I’ll get the tins greased? Damn me, the greasing was always done ready the night before in Dad’s time. Getting slack we are. We need Vic to come and sort us out for sure.”

  * * *

  Gilly didn’t attempt to see Paul and he didn’t call on her. Every morning after the disaster of Paul’s party, she woke with a feeling of dread. Another day to be worked through, a day in which she re-lived that unbelievably awful end to a wonderful day. She considered the word heartache and realised that it was an accurate description. The ache that surrounded her heart would never go away.

  Neither Uncle Viv nor Uncle Sam referred to that night again, and she continued to prepare their meals and sit at the table with them, each trying to pretend the shadow of it wasn’t between them. Ivor was the same as always, sitting with them, smiling occasionally to himself at something they lacked the vision to see. There was a difference in the way she behaved with the uncles, but he seemed unaware of it.

  Days pas
sed and she forced away day-dreams of marrying Paul and concentrated on drawing up plans for the restaurant she had discussed with Shirley. On Friday evening, while they were eating supper, she brought the subject into the open.

  “I went to talk to Mr Philpot, Marigold’s father, today.”

  “I like her, that Marigold,” Ivor said. “She lets me play with Stella. And she finds me some sweets, too.”

  Ignoring him, Viv asked, “What did you want from him?”

  “I want to open a restaurant in Nevilles’ old bake-house. Do you have any objections?”

  “A restaurant? But isn’t the place too much of a mess?” Viv asked.

  “Nothing we can’t clear up,” the positive-thinking Sam replied. Gilly needed something to concentrate on that would take her mind off Paul.

  “Marigold can’t hep you, mind,” Ivor said. “She’s got plenty to do with her job and little Stella.”

  “What say we all go and have a look-see now?” Sam suggested. “The gas has been turned off for ages, but we’ve got the Tilly lamps and they give a good light.”

  Pleased with the reception of her idea, Gilly agreed. There were hooks in the ceilings of most rooms and the lamps shed a pleasant glow. As Gilly talked, her uncles added thoughts and ideas and Viv sketched outlines on the pad he had brought. Ivor tagged along behind them, his mouth agape at the eerie aspect of the empty rooms.

  Returning to the house they sat down to discuss what they had seen and Gilly went to bed with ideas buzzing through her mind, and for a while at least the pain of Paul’s absence eased.

  * * *

  Lucy reached home one evening, frozen and tired after having to clean two sets of offices alone as her partner was sick. She had mentioned the double shift to Gee that afternoon, so she guessed at once who was responsible when she walked in to find the fire lit and a hot pie in the grate covered with a plate and a clean white cloth. She ate it then knocked on the door of his room to thank him.

  “I waited ’til I saw you coming then whipped it out of my oven so’s it wouldn’t get cold,” he said. “From the bakery where I work. Did you like it?”

  “Very much, thanks.”

  “What about a cup o’ tea to wash it down? The kettle’s boilin’ its ’ead off.”

  The occasional shared pot of tea was a welcome break in Lucy’s rather dull week. This evening she stayed longer than usual while Gee explained about his work, making her laugh as he told of some disasters.

  “Someone complained last week about finding a pen in a loaf of bread. ‘How could such a thing happen, my man,’” he mimicked. “Blimey, the boss came in ready to skin us alive, until he saw the pen and realised it was ’is. Silly sod had only put it down beside the rising dough! The dough doubles in size, see, and must have spread over the pen without anyone seeing.”

  Still laughing, Lucy stood to leave. Gee stood as well and took hold of both of her hands. “Lucy, I can’t help seein’ ’ow sore your ’ands are, redder than the boss’s face was when he recognised ’is pen. Why don’t you give up scrubbin’ floors and polishin’ furniture and work in the bakery with me? There’s a vacancy just now for someone to learn the basics, suit you fine. Someone as artistic as you are, blimey, you’d be decorating cake and Gawd knows what else before you’d been there a week. Why not give it a try? It means rising early, like the first bakin’,” he joked, “but I’ll give you a shout, and it’s better than what you’re doin’ now. Go on, say you’ll go and talk to the boss.”

  A week later Lucy started work in the bakery beside Gee, who made no attempt to disguise his delight.

  * * *

  Sam left early on the Saturday following the party, Gilly and Viv insisting that they could manage without him after midday. He went straight to the place where he believed Lillian to be living and settled in his calm and patient way to wait.

  Evening came early as the day had been a dull one and rain felt softly around him as he stood leaning against a privet hedge. The lights went on in the house and once he crossed the road and looked inside before curtains were pulled across and the room was lost to view. The young boy who had answered the door to him came out several times, called at a neighbour’s house and went back inside, but there was no sign of Lillian.

  Sam took out a package of sandwiches Gilly had made for him and began to eat. He would stand there until it was time to go back to the room he had booked. Tomorrow morning he would come again and stand there all day. He seemed unaware of his aching legs and there wasn’t a moment when the thought of giving up entered his head.

  At ten o’clock the lights, seen between the curtains, went out. Sam still waited. There was still more than an hour before he need go to his lodgings. His eyes widened when, at the side of the house, a light showed. Someone was coming out with a torch. He had seen no sign of a dog, but perhaps there was one and someone was taking it for a last walk before bed time.

  He held his breath as a figure came down the path and out of the gate, a little white dog following at her heels.

  It was her. He knew it. With his heart racing so the beat of it pounded in his ears, he stepped across the road and caught up with the slowly sauntering figure.

  “Lillian?” He said softly. “It’s me, Sam.”

  She turned then and he saw her face, shadowed by the hood of her coat, but there was no doubt it was her.

  “Sam? Is it really you? I – what are you doing here?”

  “Came to see you, see if you’re all right.” He stepped closer, wanting to take her in his arms, feel the reassurance of her closeness, but she stepped away from him a little and he held back.

  “I’m fine. I thought you – were dead.”

  “I wrote to you, right up to the time I was demobbed but I suppose the letters went astray. Not hearing from you I didn’t know what to think. But I couldn’t give up hope of… I’ve searched for you for weeks, wanting to hear from your own lips if you didn’t want to see me any more. Is it like that? Have you found someone else? I wouldn’t blame you, it’s been a long time and—” He stopped, realising she was crying.

  He abandoned all hesitation and pulled her towards him to hug her. His arms wrapped around her shoulders and he pressed her to his body. It was joy. She was plumper than he remembered, but that didn’t matter, he had loved her plumpness, it seemed a part of her generous-hearted goodness. A little more weight wouldn’t make her less attractive to him.

  It was then he realised she was pregnant. For a moment there was a brief holding back, then he said softly, “Married are you?”

  “No, Sam, not married.” Her voice was low, harsh with bitterness. “This was a result of a five minute fumble. There. Now do you see why I pretended not to be in when you called last week? Yes,” she said more calmly, “I knew it was you.”

  She tried to pull away from him but he held her tightly against him. The scent of her, the feel of her filled him with such relief he could have cried with her.

  “Lillian, let’s go somewhere and talk.”

  There were no cafés open and the public houses were closing their doors as he led her through the streets, but they found a bench under a tree, where rain filtered through the branches and fell on them. With Lillian wrapped in Sam’s great-coat, the little dog across his feet, they talked.

  It took all of Sam’s persuasions to make her promise to meet him the following day. When she finally agreed, it was three o’clock in the morning and Sam knew the boarding house door would have been firmly bolted against him. He saw her back to her home and stoically settled to snatch what sleep he could on the bench under the leaking tree.

  He called at the house at nine o’clock, having gone back to his room to bathe and shave and eat the breakfast the landlady grudgingly gave him. Lillian opened the door to him.

  She told him that two of her brothers had been killed in action and a sister had died during an air-raid. Another brother had taken off on his bike to find pastures new and now lived in Cardiff.

  “Great,�
� Sam said, “that’s not far from me. We’ll go and see him when you come to visit my family.”

  “How can I visit your family, Sam? Look at me! I’m going to have a baby, a bastard. I don’t even know who the father is! How can you even pretend it doesn’t matter?”

  “But it doesn’t matter. And I’m not pretending. Surely you realise by now that I love you and want nothing more than to marry you and share your life?”

  “I won’t give up the baby.”

  “Damn me, of course not! I want you and the baby. He’ll be your baby and as a part of you I want to care for him.”

  “You think that now, but you’ll resent him as he grows. You’ll end up hating him and wondering about the man I went with that night, it always happens.”

  Sam stood up, pulled her up to stand with him, his arms around her. “Look at me, Lillian. Look at me and tell me if you really think I’d resent your child.”

  “I’m afraid to risk it,” she whispered.

  He didn’t make much progress with his pleading for her to come to stay with him at Bread Street, but at least she had been found. Sitting on the train that was taking him away from her he was satisfied.

  “Things are shaping,” he told himself, “things are definitely shaping.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Paul was devastated at the turn of events in the brief time he had been home. The warmth of Gilly’s greeting and their plans for an early marriage had, for a brief moment, made everything was perfect. Then came the disaster of the party, like some stage farce. He felt defensive towards his parents and concentrated on their reaction, tried, in his grief, not to think of the loss of Gilly. His father offered an explanation.

  “Envious they are and you can understand it, Paul,” Derek had said the night of the party, his voice thick with the damage to his nose and mouth. “Imagine how they felt coming home to find their business had faltered and ours had grown. I’ve been here all through to see to things. Jenkins’ bakery lost all its men apart from Dai Smoky and there was poor Gilly trying to hold things together almost on her own.”